Jean-François Marmontel (July 11, 1723 – December 31, 1799) was a French historian and writer, a member of the Encyclopediste movement.
He was born of poor parents at Bort-les-Orgues, in Corrèze. After studying with the Jesuits at Mauriac, Cantal, he taught in their colleges at Clermont and Toulouse; and in 1745, acting on the advice of Voltaire, he set out for Paris to try for literary success. From 1748 to 1753 he wrote a succession of tragedie...
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Jean-François Marmontel (July 11, 1723 – December 31, 1799) was a French historian and writer, a member of the Encyclopediste movement.
He was born of poor parents at Bort-les-Orgues, in Corrèze. After studying with the Jesuits at Mauriac, Cantal, he taught in their colleges at Clermont and Toulouse; and in 1745, acting on the advice of Voltaire, he set out for Paris to try for literary success. From 1748 to 1753 he wrote a succession of tragedies (Denys le Tyran (1748); Aristomene (1749); Cleopâtre (1750); Heraclides (1752); Egyptus (1753)), which, though only moderately successful on the stage, secured Marmontel's introduction into literary and fashionable circles.
He wrote a series of articles for the Encyclopédie evincing considerable critical power and insight, which in their collected form, under the title Eléments de Littérature, still rank among the French classics. He also wrote several comic operas, the two best of which probably are Sylvain (1770) and Zémire et Azore (1771)...
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